278 HISTOEY OF CHEMISTRY. 



Sect. '2. Reception and Confirmation of the Theory ,f O.ryi/t />. 



THE Oxygen Theory made its way with extraordinary lapidity among 

 the best philosophers. 6 In 1785, that is, soon after Cavendish's 

 synthesis of water had removed some of the most formidable objections 

 to it, Berthollet, already an eminent chemist, declared himself r. 

 convert. Indeed it was so soon generally adopted in France, that Four- 

 croy promulgated its doctrines under the name of " La Chimie Fran- 

 caise," a title which Lavoisier did not altogether relish. The extra- 

 ordinary eloquence and success of Fourcroy as a lecturer at the 

 Jardin des I'lantes, had no small share in the diffusion of the oxve'en 



/ O 



theory ; and the name of " the apostle of the new chemistry" which 

 was at first given him in ridicule, was justly held by him to be a glo- 

 rious distinction. 7 



Guyton de Morveau, who had at first been a strenuous advocate of 

 the phlogistic theory, was invited to Paris, and brought over to the 

 opinions of Lavoisier ; and soon joined in the formation of the nomen- 

 clature founded upon the theory. This step, of which we shall shortly 

 speak, fixed the new doctrine, and diffused it further. Delametherie 

 alone defended the phlogistic theory with vigor, and indeed with vio- 

 lence. He was the editor of the Journal de Physique, and to evade 

 the influence which this gave him, the antiphlogistians 8 established, 

 as the vehicle of their opinions, another periodical, the Annales de 

 Chimie. 



In England, indeed, their success was not so immediate. Cavendish,* 

 in his Memoir of 1784, speaks of the question between the two 

 opinions as doubtful. " There are," he says, " several Memoirs of 

 M. Lavoisier, in which he entirely discards phlogiston ; and as not 

 only the foregoing experiments, but most other phenomena of nature, 

 seem explicable as well, or nearly as well, upon this as upon the com- 

 monly believed principle of phlogiston," Cavendish proceeds to 

 explain his experiments according to the new views, expressing no 

 decided preference, however, for either system. But Kirwan, another 

 English chemist, contested the point much more resolutely. His 

 theory identified inflammable air, or hydrogen, with phlogiston ; and 

 in this view, he wrote a work which was intended as a confutation c 4 



8 Thomson, ii. ISO. T Cuvier, Eloyes, i. p. 20. 



Thomson, ii. 133. 9 Phil. Trans. 1784, p. 150. 



